LEGO Ideas Aggregator, Analysis, & Advice...Plus other random cool things people are trying to make happen

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Weekly Cuusoo

News

Project Nearing Open Beta

As I have mentioned several times over the last few weeks I have been working on a Cuusoo related coding project and I will soon be releasing it as an "open beta." I still need to work out a few kinks in the interface but I could use some testers as the true technical hurdles have been met.

If you would be interested in participating, I would be happy to have your assistance. The only requirement is that you have a facebook account and about five minutes to spare. If you are interested please contact me via this link and I will get in touch with you in the next few days.

Pick of the Week

This is definitely one of those those weeks were my pick is not supported by the community. I must confess though that I love mecha builds and usually, the tinier the better. Mobile Frame Zero is a particular joy of mine. I can't help looking at these guys and being amazed. I am also a die hard fan of the original Bubblegum Crisis series so
anything to do with a mechanized police force really hits me where it
counts

Even despite my personal proclivities for this projects how can you not respect a design with so much content, character, and articulation in a build so small! Take a moment and really breath in how the parts all go together. You could learn a lot by seeing how much is accomplished with simple parts woven together expertly.

Yoroi has four other mecha based project on Cuusoo, so if you like this one, make sure to check them all out.

Honorable Mentions

An absolutely fantastic build. I really like to see old school cars done in Lego. I love to see the ingenuity people come up with for the wheel wells and head lamps and such.

The placement of rubber rings around old style wheels is brilliant and I will probably have to replicate that if I ever get around to making one of my own.

Henningb states the the build "fits minifigures" and I think that is an apt description. This build is obviously scaled more towards authenticity than minifig compatibility (which I am totally fine with). There is often some selective interpretation between minifigs, cars, and scale and though, as depicted above, two figures can sit comfortably in the front seat, they do appear to be children pretending at driving.

I am very impressed with the scale and variety of this work. This seems more like a designing standard than anything else though. This could be a great project for a LUG to do for a Con, each member contributing a small section to a massive small scale city.

Again, going back to my affection for small builds, I find this concept very compelling.

Overal the design is excellent. The creators custom builds are fantastic and the mini builds of the classic medieval Lego builds are great. However with the two elements paired together there is some issue. The Lego inspired builds seem to be out of proportion, to me, with the castle elements. For example, the Blacksmith's is taller than the castle wall.

All in all a great design but it could use some work bridging the gap and bringing the disparate elements together.

I am unfamiliar with the series but Penguins are popular regardless of context and this set idea is compellingly adorable. That is a great "sell" on a Cuusoo projects. Something that has an established market but is also inviting to people not familiar with the exact details.

Notables

A very accurate model of the building from the fanatic movie but the project fails to capture the content that is great from the film.

There is also a huge disparaging in what is being presented. The characters are 8-bit style but the building is fully actualized. If you are going to mix it up, for the sake of playability it should be the other way around with a flat building (conserving pieces) and minifigs/brick built playable figures.

This is an awesome MOC. I would expect it to recieve high marks at a Con in a comic themed category. There is also some great technique and ingenuity at play there. The Walkway is utterly fantastic.
This fails to grab me as a viable set in the same way that seeing the Waynes shot down in an alley between two massive Modulars would also fail to grab me as a set. Red Hood, a fall guy taking his role literally and falling into a vat makes for a great scene and MOC, but the scale here and lack of thematic playability are heavy knocks against it.

All the add-on sets are extremely clever but, to be absolutely blunt, if there is anything legitimately more pointless on Cuusoo I have not found it.

Any project, not based on some extremely popular IP or well supported movement is going to take a minimum of two years to reach production. This likely puts the Add-on outside of the production dates of the original set. This would mean that the market for the proposed add-on is extremely limited as it is only a subset of the people who bought the original set.

I love the show, and even considered, briefly, doing a project. Fundamentally though the series is based on character interaction and unique challenges for every episode. This does not lend itself well to a single compelling set.